History Main / NotTheFallThatKillsYou

...[[InertiaIsACruelMistress It's the landing]].

...[[InertiaIsACruelMistress It's hitting the ground]].

** Zig-Zagged in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. At face value, it's played more realistically than every other game; whereas fall damage in those would take out 3 hearts at worst, it can scale all the way up to 30 hearts here, enough to instantly kill you at any point. However, you also get the [[NotQuiteFlight Paraglider]] at the end of the tutorial, which brings any fall to an immediate midair stop without any consequences. In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom Tears of the Kingdom]]'', you can fall from the Sky Islands, and unless you whip out a Paraglider or [[SoftWater fall into deep water]], the resulting fall damage can easily exceed the maximum of 40 hearts.

** Link always takes damage from falling into BottomlessPits or [[SuperDrowningSkills deep water]], but the 3D titles also add falling damage from a sufficient enough height. In later games, if you fall ''too'' far, the roll move will no longer save you from damage.
** Zig-Zagged in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. At face value, it's played more realistically than every other game; whereas fall damage in those would take out 3 hearts at worst, it can scale all the way up to 30 hearts here, enough to instantly kill you at any point. However, you also get the [[NotQuiteFlight Paraglider]] at the end of the tutorial, which brings any fall to an immediate midair stop without any consequences.

** Almost every character has fallen off a cliff at least once, but by far the most egregious example is [[{{Miko}} Kikyo]]. Early on in the series, this was her primary means of exit; she would fall off a cliff, be presumed dead, then show up two episodes later and fall off another cliff, causing no end of drama with Inuyasha. [[spoiler: Of course, [[Series/GameOfThrones what is dead may never die]], regardless of how many cliffs you fall from.]]

* Averted in ''Anime/{{K}}'' -- [[spoiler: As seen in the [[SpoilerOpening opening]], Shiro falls from the airship through the roof of the school gym, but survives with barely any injury. In Episode 11, it's revealed that he is immortal]].

** During the final battle in the first movie, Astrid gets thrown from her dragon and goes tumbling through the air. Hiccup and Toothless fly in and catch her right before she splats. Hiccup asks Toothless if he caught her, Toothless makes sure he did and Astrid smiles rather happily considering that that catch probably should have broken her legs or spine. And in the same battle, [[spoiler: Hiccup and Toothless (without flight control) should probably be splats on the ground at the end (though we don't actually see how they hit the ground), and the only injury ends up being a leg needing to be replaced]], so that should probably be chalked up to [[NighInvulnerability barbarian hardiness and cartoon physics.]]

* Used in ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'' when Quasimodo falls from a parapet of the cathedral only to be caught under the armpits by Phoebus who happened to be on a lower level. Not only does Quasi not die, not only do Phoebus's arms not get completely ripped out of their sockets but everyone [[spoiler: lives happily ever after]].

** Just like the comics, he learns from his mistakes enough to save [[spoiler: MJ in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome.'' It's debatable if MCU's Peter would have even saved her before the Green Goblin knocks him out of the way given he was reaching out just for her hand and all he might have achieved was tearing her arm out of its socket. Garfield's Peter, now older and wiser instead immediately jumps to where MJ is in the air, bodily grabs her, and protects her most vulnerable areas like head and chest while slowly decelerating on a line of web until they reach the ground. This allows Peter to have a MyGreatestSecondChance moment as he's clearly learned from the situation with Gwen.]]

** in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'',

*** [[spoiler: Harvey Dent/Two Face]] falls from twenty, ''maybe'' thirty feet, and, according to WordOfGod, this kills him. Being already severely injured by his earlier accident, as well as the angle at which he fell, was probably what did it. Batman falls about the same distance and survives without any major injuries, presumably because he landed on his feet and is a lot more agile anyway.
** In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', the "safety rope" the prisoners use when they try to climb out of the pit lets them drop a long way before snapping taut, breaking their fall very suddenly while tied around their waist in one place, with no padding or harness to spread the load. This is ignoring the fact that they then get swung straight into a stone wall. There is no way [[spoiler: Batman]] would be in any fit state to try again after falling once, especially considering [[spoiler: how much damage his spine took already]].

* In ''Film/TheHobbit'', Bilbo and a goblin tumble over the edge of a landing in the goblin caves. Bilbo loses consciousness but survived with a few bruises and cuts and was up and running in no time thanks to a cluster of mushrooms that cushioned his fall when he should have been in a much worse condition with or without the mushrooms. The goblin had nothing to cushion its fall, leaving it easy prey for [[spoiler: Gollum]].
* At the climax of ''Film/TheHudsuckerProxy'', Norvile Barnes attempts suicide by jumping from a clock tower but is saved when [[spoiler: the MagicalNegro who cleans the clock's gears somehow manages to stop time so that Norville freezes in place a few feet from the ground; he even [[BreakingTheFourthWall tells the audience]], "I'm not supposed to do this, but do you have any better ideas?" Norville then just hangs there for several minutes while talking to an angel (it's that kind of movie) until the clock-cleaner restarts time and Norville falls the few remaining feet -- and, presumably since he already safely decelerated when time was stopped, he's only very slightly injured]].

** In ''Film/IronMan2'', it's also averted as Tony visibly drops his speed significantly before [[spoiler: grabbing Pepper and flying her away from the exploding Hammeroid]].

* In ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', Marcus Wright survives falling off of an HK-Carrier flying quickly enough to make him skip across the Rio Grande when he falls off. [[spoiler: Justified because he's actually a machine built by Skynet with organic parts, though he doesn't know this at first and still has organic parts that should have been pulverized by this.]]

* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] in ''Series/BarnabyJones'''s "Sing A Song Of Murder": a singer falls off a diving board into an empty swimming pool and lands on his head, and his manager and her colleague decide to cover it up by burying his body and making it look like he was kidnapped for a $500,000 ransom. [[spoiler: It turns out the guy ''was still alive'', and it was the loss of air when he was buried that killed him.]]

* Averted in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' when Nathan saves [[spoiler: Tracy]] as soon as she jumps off the bridge before she has time to build up velocity and what not.

* During the fifth and final season of ''Series/ResurrectionErtugrul'', [[spoiler: Beybolat/Albasti]] jumps off a cliff into a river far below to escape from Ertugrul, at a height that clearly would have offed him. [[spoiler: And while it does render him unconscious briefly, he gets revived by [[WalkingSpoiler Arikbuka]]]].

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9Sc88qreg The final promo for the sequel]] shows that Chell now has special boots instead of just the springs. The narrator Cave Johnson claims they prevent her from landing anywhere except on her feet (there is no evidence to support this, as all of Chell's flips are of her own accord). This is ''not'' mentioned in the game proper (although it is commented on by [=GLaDOS=]) and early in the game, Wheatley still sounds concerned about Chell jumping into a large pit and landing on, say, her head. [[spoiler: The bit about Wheatley is justified in that he is ''designed'' to be a moron.]]

* Happened in the ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' pilot: near the end, [[spoiler: Kit is thrown off the Iron Vulture high above Cape Suzette. He is saved by Baloo, who raced to the scene all the way from Louie's with the Sea Duck in constant overdrive, and caught him by his sweater inches above sea level -- instantly arresting his vertical momentum, and instantly accelerating him to hundreds of MPH ''horizontally''. His sweater wasn't even stretched]].

* Played straight in ''[[Literature/WaysideSchool Sideways Stories From Wayside School]]''. A girl fell asleep in class, rolled out the window, and fell. The playground supervisor catches her before hitting the ground. The school is a 30-floor building, with her class on the top floor. The student in question is... annoyed at being woken up from her nap. However, this is also a school where a teacher had the power to change children into apples and dead rats occasionally try to sneak into classrooms, so it ''may'' be safe to say that the rules of the real world don't always apply.

* Most ''Videogame/{{Metroid}}'' games lack fall acceleration and thus lack fall damage, even from literal canyons, unless Samus falls to the ground with something heavy on top of her. ''Videogame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus'' has the opposite, where flying too high without the spacecraft will cause Samus to take damage and fall back down(every game similarly stops you but most do not punish the player with damage for it). The games in the ''Videogame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' do have fall acceleration and if you somehow manage to get Samus into a situation where she reaches terminal velocity she will freeze up and the player will be unable to take any action until she hits the ground, at which point she will be temporarily stunned. Samus still takes no fall damage from this, but ''Videogame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' added BottomlessPits, which do cause minor damage to Samus before she respawns next to them. ''Videogame/MetroidPrimeHunters'' is the only game where regular falls can hurt Samus if she is high enough and free fall,will kill you if Samus misses a jump in a low gravity, no atmosphere environment and drifts out into space. ''Videogame/MetroidOtherM'' goes back to having no adverse affects for falls, provided Samus simply falls. If she is ''thrown'' towards the ground she can then she can be injured.

-> '''Luigi''': "I fell for ''hours''! ...Well, it seemed like hours. Anyway, I was falling, nothing below me but boiling lava! Good thing I found the magic balloon!"

* The ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' cartoon, in the Mama Luigi episode. "I fell for ''hours''! ...Well, it seemed like hours. Anyway, I was falling, nothing below me but [[ConvectionSchmonvection boiling lava]]! Good thing I found the magic balloon!"

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', fall damage is quite lethal (except for the SoftWater), but a warrior (or druid in bear form) can use their Charge ability on an enemy, which causes them to rush up to that foe. However, the scripted movement for the Charge overrides the fact that they're currently falling, so they end up on the ground having suffered no damage. Also, casting Slow Fall or Levitate will instantly reduce a falling character's speed, to no ill effect, and they will suffer no damage when they hit the ground -- regardless of how far they fell before that point.

...[[InertiaIsACruelMistress It's the sudden stop]].

...It's hitting the ground.

Amusingly, even works that take the stress of deceleration into account will paradoxically ignore the stress of ''acceleration''. Trauma from rapid velocity change works both ways. [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom Getting thrown halfway across a city square]] is pretty much equivalent to standing still and getting hit by a train. Even if Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} catches you at the other end, you still end up ripped apart like tissue paper by steel-hard fingers pushing at you like jackhammers. If writers considered the way vehicles work, they could avoid this. Don't want your hero bisecting flying civilians? Try having them travel at the same speed and gradually decelerate the target to a more reasonable velocity. Air braking is your friend.

* Subverted in ''Specials'' when [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Tally]], running away, jumps off a cliff while escaping Fausto with seemingly nothing to save her (no bungee jacket or hoverboard) says before jumping, 'Hey, Fausto, how's this for crazy? ''Crash bracelets''', and states that since crash bracelets weren't designed for anything like a jump off a cliff, she almost passed out from simply raising her arms to shoulder height.

* This is part of the explanation of the infamous [[StockShticks "Why can't they make a plane out of the black box material?"]] joke, besides the obvious that it would be too heavy to fly -- even if the plane ''was'' indestructible, it would be of no help to the oh-so-breakable people inside of the plane when it crashes.

->''"Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now traveling at approximately a hundred and twenty miles an hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces."''

* In ''LightNovel/TheDevilIsAPartTimer'', an unconscious Chiho is thrown out of the sky by Lucifer. Emi runs up and catches her. Interestingly, Chiho is unharmed, while the impact ''breaks Emi's legs''.

* Fall damage can occur at short distances in ''VideoGame/DeepRockGalactic. It's not the fall that kills you, but the speed you hit the ground with. The longer you fall, the faster you plummet and the more damage you take upon landing. Some enemies can cause massive knockback, making you [[BlownAcrossTheRoom fly across the map]] at high speed and inflicting huge damage when you land. The Tunnel Rat beer reduces the damage taken from falling and the Engineer's platforms can also reduce fall damage if you land on them. Areas that are experiencing low gravity doesn't eliminate fall damage, but it makes it where you have to be falling for a really long time to build up enough velocity to even take any fall damage to begin with.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' (both use the same engine). Falling from a too large height will damage you, and once you've passed the damaging height limit, you don't need to go much higher to kill yourself. There's also a cheat that increases the size of your character model... but it doesn't scale physics interactions with it. So it is entirely possible to turn yourself into a giant, but still die from what is now a knee-height fall. [[SoftWater Landing in water]], though, cancels fall damage... assuming you fall deep enough. You need about 3 feet of water below you to break the fall, otherwise you'll take full damage and die, only with your corpse floating in the water.

** Also averted in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' if you're wearing Power Armor. No fall damage is sustained after falling from any height, and if you fall from high enough that you would normally take fall damage, you land with a massive thud that inflicts damage on anyone nearby, including friendly [=NPCs=].

* In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShell'' game, the opening cut scene has our heroine leaping out of a helicopter flying high above and landing without trouble, possibly justified by her cyborg nature. And then in the rest of the gameplay, you die if you fall off an eight-foot-high stack of crates. Base jumping without any apparent equipment is the Major's calling card, and it's never shown how she lands after these jumps.

** [[TheChick Sam]] and [[TokenBlackFriend Tucker]] are dropped from the top of a building into a dumpster. They just get grossed out.

...It's hitting the ground.[[note]] Or if you prefer, it's the stop at the end.[[/note]]

[[folder:Jokes]]
* One piece of DeadBabyComedy involves a woman trapped in a burning skyscraper holding her baby. A man below tells her to throw the baby to him, saying he's the star player of [football team you don't like]. The woman throws the baby, the man catches it flawlessly... then puts the baby on the ground, steps back a few feet, and kicks a field goal.
[[/folder]]

* ''ComicBook/BatgirlYearOne'': Averted when Barbara Gordon's jumpline, made of normal rope, is cut by Batman before she can hurt herself with the sudden deceleration. ComicBook/{{Batgirl}} is later given some of the special 'batrope' to use with the explanation that it is elastic and extends/contracts in order to prevent the shock of an instant stop

* In a ''ComicBook/CloakAndDagger'' story where Dagger is thrown out of a plane, Cloak saves her by enclosing her in the dark dimension of his cloak... but she still has all the momentum of the fall. So he repeatedly releases her over water for a second at a time, gradually slowing her down and leaving her extremely bruised but alive.

** ''ComicBook/AdventuresOfSupergirl'': Discussed. As she rushes to catch a falling aircraft, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} ponders that she must be careful and mindful of air resistance, negative acceleration, her and the object's speed...or she will crush it and everybody inside.

* Gwen Stacy's death from the comics gets its revisit in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderman2''. What kills her this time isn't Spidey jerking her to a stop and snapping her neck, as in the original. It's the fact that Spidey's webs stretch like bungee cords in these movies. At terminal velocity, Gwen is falling too fast for Peter's one strand of web to slow her fall enough to survive her head first contact with the ground.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':

* While not a fall, the physics-defying properties of this trope are subverted in the ''Film/{{Blade}}'' movies, where the titular super-human grabs a hold of the back of a speeding train and painfully dislocates his shoulder. If he hadn't already been superman, he would have simply ''lost'' his shoulder.

* ''Film/{{Daredevil}}'' has an infamous moment where the filmmakers apparently forget that not everyone in a red suit is ComicBook/SpiderMan. Daredevil jumps from the roof, falls ''well'' over ten stories, flips in midair, and lands on a window washer platform. Apparently, so long as it's still high enough above ground, it's totally okay to plummet onto solid steel at terminal velocity!

* Averted in ''[[Literature/DragonKeeperTrilogy Dragon Keeper: Garden Of The Purple Dragon]]''. Ping jumps off a burning balcony, hits a tree on the way down, then lands in a pool. However, hitting the tree and water are both separately described as being ''very painful'', and Ping breaks a rib or two in the process.

** Specifically, InertialDampening is a whole thing. It's the reason accelerating to ''or'' decelerating from warp doesn't reduce everyone to paste on the walls. In the [=DS9=] episode "The Ship," a Jem'Hadar ship's entire crew is dead specifically because the inertial dampers failed and everyone went "squish." (Too bad our heroes must still contend with the Changeling leading them; their natural form is liquid so going "squish" doesn't hurt them.) However, outside impacts can't be predicted so the inertial dampers take a moment to compensate for the unexpected change in motion, hence the StarTrekShake that would still be ''much worse'' without them.

** Averted during the Pueblo attack, due to Leon's habit of jumping down ladders rather than climbing them. If you climb up into the 50 foot high watchtower, Leon will still jump down, fall at a steady speed for a good three seconds, and land without so much as a grunt. It's worth pointing out that Leon isn't nearly so invulnerable to falling during any of the game's obnoxious PressXToNotDie cutscenes, though these at least tend to have the excuse of him falling into a pit [[BottomlessPit from which there is no escape]] (or just a lot of spikes at the bottom).

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' might be the largest offender of this trope since his ability has always been to run really really fast. [[RequiredSecondaryPowers Not necessarily stop super fast.]] Likewise, he doesn't suffer fall damage (though he is still vulnerable to falling into any BottomlessPit). The closest the games get to depicting wall crash damage is to make him flatten against the wall, fall on the ground, and promptly spring back up, Disney-style (this was to be depicted in ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 Sonic 2]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Generations]]'', but cut out; it only appears in other 3D games like ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' ([=Wii/PS2=])).